A Record of Events in Norfolk County, Virginia: From April 19th, 1861, to May 10th, 1862, with a History of the Soldiers and Sailors of Norfolk County, Norfolk City and Portsmouth, who Served in the Confederate States Army Or Navy(Google eBook)

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Page 11 - Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression...

Page 363 - Monitor, and soon after the latter stood down for Fortress Monroe, and we thought it probable she had exhausted her supply of ammunition or sustained some injury. Soon after, the Merrimac and the two other steamers headed for my ship, and I then felt to the fullest extent my condition. I was hard and immovably aground, and they could take position under my stern and rake me. I had expended most of my solid shot...

Page 363 - She returned my fire with her rifled bow -gun with a shell, which passed through the chief engineer's stateroom, through the engineer's messroom amidships, and burst in the boatswain's room, tearing four rooms all into one, in its passage exploding two charges of powder, which set the ship on fire, but it was promptly extinguished by a party headed by my first lieutenant.

Page 343 - Immediately upon the adoption of the plan. Mr. Porter was directed to proceed with the constructor s duties. Mr. Williamson was charged with the engineer's department, and to Mr. Brooke were assigned the duties of attending to and preparing the iron and forwarding it from the Tredegar Works, the experiments necessary to test the plates and to determine their thickness, and devising heavy rifled ordnance for the ship, with the details pertaining to ordnance.

Page 342 - ... was designed to divide the water and prevent it from banking up on the forward part of the shield with the vessel in motion, and also to serve as a tank to regulate the ship's draft. His design was approved by the department, and a practical mechanic was brought from Norfolk to aid in preparing tbe drawings and specifications.

Page 185 - We then filed to the left a short distance to gain the banks of a small stream in order to be protected from the shells of the Federal batteries by placing a range of hills between. These the enemy were already viewing within four hundred yards with covetous eyes, and making dispositions to attempt their capture, for they were the very keys to the invested city. When nearly opposite the portion of our works held by the Federal troops, we met several soldiers who were in the works at the time of the...

Page 112 - This brigade had been disposed in two lines : two of its regiments, the Sixty-ninth and Seventy-first Pennsylvania, posted behind a low stone wall and slight breastwork hastily constructed by them, while the remaining regiment (the Seventy-second Pennsylvania) lay behind the crest some sixty paces to the rear, and so placed as to fire over the heads of those in front. When the swift advancing and yelling array of Pickett's force had, notwithstanding the volleys it met, approached close up to the...

Page 343 - The novel plan of submerging the ends of the ship and the eaves of the casemate, however, is the peculiar and distinctive feature of the Virginia. It was never before adopted. The resistance of iron plates to heavy ordnance, whether presented in vertical planes or at low angles of inclination, had been investigated in England before the Virginia was commenced, and Major Barnard, USA, had referred to the subject in his

Page 185 - I never felt more like fighting in my life. Our comrades had been slaughtered in a most inhuman and brutal manner, and slaves were trampling over their mangled and bleeding corpses. Revenge must have fired every heart and strung every arm with nerves of steel for the Herculean task of blood. We filed up a ditch, which had been dug for...

Page 332 - ... it would appear that this is our only chance to get a suitable vessel in a short time. The bottom of the hull, boilers, and heavy and costly parts of the engine, being but little injured, reduce the cost of construction to about one-third of the amount which •would be required to construct such a vessel anew.